This looks like a combination of supermarket and charity; both are great, but does the combination make sense? A regular supermarket is a for-profit legal entity, a charity usually has tax-exemption, how can one manage the legal complications of mixing it?
What's the complication? Their supermarket seems to be "shop normal items, sit down for a session with a social worker instead of paying", so they don't have a commercial interest. Seems like a good approach to get people the items they need and also reaching them with social work and understanding their needs and what problems they might need help with.
So it is not a supermarket, just a charity? Regular people cannot go, buy something and pay like in any other supermarket? I haven't seen that explained in the article.
Municipal subsidies, private and corporate donations. I assume a municipal social worker decides who gets in and who does not. This is a really common approach in the Netherlands, which has been going on for decades for other projects. I can't remember any news articles mentioning significant problems with this approach.
This looks to me like an extended "voedselbank" which involves social work. I don't see anything truly novel or problematic with this approach.
Donations, apparently, likely both monetary and products.
> Who decides the cutoff?
They mentioned in the article that they're not a food bank, and they don't need proof of poverty. Since they connect the "shopping" to working with one of their life coaches (I don't know how often or how long you need to talk to them), I guess that's a deterrent against random rich people getting their diapers there. Or maybe they do, because they also want to talk to someone about their life, in which case I suppose they're also the target audience.
I have no clue about the sustainability or tax exemptions. It sounds like the supermarket is a way to get more people in the community in contact with their social workers. Outreach programs aren't that rare, the combination with a supermarket is, but it doesn't strike me as that odd.
> Wal-Mart’s prices were matched and even undercut by the Aldi and Lidl food chains, which also were ordered to cease selling below cost or face fines of about $445,000 for each product sold in violation of the order.
They probably still would have lost, our supermarket system is very cut-throat ;)
